Protecting personal property has become a major industry from a security system standpoint. Security systems today can be as elaborate as those installed to protect banking institutions, equipped with video cameras, hooked-up as alarms to the local police station and security guards, or be as simple as a car alarm that is sounded when the door is forced open.
Likewise, the shipping industry is faced with an increasingly growing security problem in that containers, packages, baggage, luggage and mail (all of which may be referred to as simply "shipping container" hereinafter) are vulnerable to being opened by unauthorized personnel, who might steal the contents. As this problem increases it becomes necessary to protect these articles in order to protect the customer's property.
Due to the smaller size and larger quantity of the shipping articles mentioned above, the protection system used must be compact for concealment purposes, and somewhat simple in operation, thereby making them easy to produce and install in mass quantities while being fairly easy to monitor and operate.
The anti-theft method of the present invention conveniently addresses all of these issues to provide a workable and fairly inexpensive solution to securing safe transportation of articles shipped in some type of enclosed shipping container.